


the draw

by kiden



Category: X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2018-08-03
Packaged: 2019-06-21 00:35:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15545709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiden/pseuds/kiden
Summary: "Jean’s sigh pulls at the corner of Rogue’s mouth, her cheek twitching, and she bites her tongue hard to keep the smirk off her face. The instinct is all John’s. To laugh at Jean’s disapproval, to sneer and scoff and roll her eyes. It has to be John’s because it’s certainly not Logan’s."





	the draw

It’s not until the smell of cigars seeps through the walls, from her room to Kitty’s, that Jean comes to her door, knuckles rapping hard against the solid - what? walnut, maybe? Rogue’s never been much to care about shit like that, even before. Jean’s sigh pulls at the corner of Rogue’s mouth, her cheek twitching, and she bites her tongue hard to keep the smirk off her face. The instinct is all John’s. To laugh at Jean’s disapproval, to sneer and scoff and roll her eyes. It has to be John’s because it’s certainly not Logan’s.

Though when Jean shifts her weight and asks her to please, please stop, her voice tired and bordering on impatient, her breasts full and free under the thin silks of her nightie and robe, yeah. Well, maybe it’s a little bit Rogue too. Maybe a little bit of Logan. Not everything can be blamed on John, as much as she’d like to. Hands shaking at her sides, Rogue rubs her fingers together, knowing they still smell like the cigar, like the whiskey she’d dipped her thumb into just to get a taste of it on her tongue, God, she wants to touch Jean. The same way the soft flesh between her knuckles itch and burn, the way the hair on the back of her neck raises when there’s trouble.

“Sorry,” she says, and wonders how smooth the inside of Jean’s wrists are. “Sometimes the smell helps me sleep.”

The way Jean smiles is the way Rogue’s mama used to smile at church barbecues, at the kids from across town who’d run around the yard with no shoes and unwashed hair, their hands smeared with sauce and lips stained from too much powdered-drink. An endless well of understanding and love and kindness, but the sort that would always be more than an arm’s length away. Empathy at a distance. At least she can understand why Jean does it. Rogue knows better than most what it feels like to have someone else rattling around her head.

“It’s okay,” Jean says instead of saying it’s not okay, not at all. “But if you have to, bring it outside. And, Rogue, if you change your mind -.”

“I won’t,” she says. Doesn’t dare let Jean finish. Maybe she could block John. Block Logan. Maybe she can block Cody, who is just a warm flame in the center of her chest, makes her want to watch NASCAR and take up chewing. But the doors Jean wants to close, well, Rogue’s not ready to stop walking through some of them. Instincts and memories and comfort that shouldn’t be her’s, but is, and she’d rather take all the bad that comes with it instead of risking the loss of it all.

Jean smiles prettily, her mouth drawn tight, and nods. She says, “At least open a window?” and she’s trying for friendly but only sounds tired. They’re all tired, these days.

The door closes with a soft click and Rogue presses her bare hand against the finely polished grain and thinks it’s mahogany. Of course it’s mahogany. The wood is cool under her fingertips, the opposite of the open fire that seemed to burn in Carol’s skin. Just thinking about it she’s a handful of inches off the ground, her heart pounding, her chest shaking.

The things she refused to give up, she thinks, and laughs.

Because if she doesn’t laugh at how small she standing in the impossibly big shadows around her, Rogue’s sure she’ll lose herself in them. Laughs because maybe she wants to. And that instinct, she knows, curls around her body warm and familiar, is Logan’s. To run and keep running, to forget, to disappear, to find a place at the end of the world and live there until the earth takes her.

“You’re so annoying,” she says aloud to the emptiness of her room. “You’re the worst of them all, Logan, I swear to God.”

What she doesn’t say is because he’s the one she holds on to the tightest, still can feel the sharp edges of his tags digging into the palm of her hand. She can still fly because she grasps it so tightly it’s hard to breathe when she thinks about it. The same with Carol's strength. The same with Logan, and Cody’s tender heart. There’s nothing of Erik - of Magneto - she lets herself hold on to.

Jean says one day she’ll be able to control them all. Every brush of her fingers against someone’s skin and she’ll remember, forever, and it’s a terrifying thought. So, like always, she chooses not to think about it. The static is easier, the cigars and the whiskey, John’s love for The Clash. Wondering if there is a difference anymore, any line that separates where they end and she begins

She falls onto the bed, lifting her hips to shimmy out of the cotton palm-tree pajamas bottoms Jubilee bought her the year before. Legs sliding, soft and bare, against the sheets, Rogue turns her face into the pillows and laughs. It comes loud and sudden until it’s painful, and then, just like that, gone. Her mouth snapping shut, her jaw tight, her eyes wet.

Call yourself Marie, she thinks, and rolls onto her side towards the window.


End file.
